


a moment's silence (happens grace, happens sweet)

by disinclinant (orphan_account)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Healer Cho Chang - Freeform, Rare Pairings, Second War with Voldemort, Self-Indulgent, Slow Burn, Tenderness, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-04-06 20:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19070479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/disinclinant
Summary: Charlie Weasley, and Cho Chang, and the war, and quiet moments in between the world falling apart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deifiliaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deifiliaa/gifts).



> i've been daydreaming this fic and then keysmashed about it to deifiliaa who loved the concept and encouraged me to write and post it (much love babe). 
> 
> title bastardized from hozier's 'a moment's silence' and 'wasteland baby', which are both very much the Aesthetic™

The headquarters of Order of the Phoenix travels around, ever since Grimmauld Place was made unusable with Snape’s betrayal. It’s probably safer than having one place to meet in, but it’s definitely a pain in the arse, having to figure out the encrypted coordinates to the newest safe-house and the password to allow himself in. 

Charlie, who is always exhausted these days, can’t quite appreciate the value of the added security when all he wants to do is sit down and have a cuppa and close his eyes and turn off his brain— _after_ reporting in, of course. 

He hates the war. 

Well, nobody  _enjoys_  war, unless you're completely mad, which he isn’t. But the war is bloody awful. A long and grim slog through suspicion and murk and fear that never quite goes away. He hadn't known you could be unendingly afraid. He thought it was something that, like other emotions, one could get used to, so that it lost its grip on you. But this war has taught him that fear has many faces, and many claws, and never, ever lets you go. 

And the bloody  _waiting._  What he wouldn’t give for some  _action,_  instead of skulking around and spying and speaking cryptically with maybe-allies, maybe-traitors, maybe-refugees, maybe-Death Eaters, and everyone in between. He misses being free to say whatever he bloody well thought. He misses the greatest threat to his life being accidentally getting roasted to a crisp by a dragon, rather than torture and death, the torture and death of someone he loves, and/or the fall of the Wizarding World as he knows it. 

At least dragons make  _sense_. At least dragons are never less than what they appear to be—dangerous, beautiful, worthy of respect and care and admiration. 

Merlin, he's tired. 

But he’s reported in to Kingsley, and he’s not being sent out immediately, so he makes his way to the kitchen. The house is quiet. It’s very late—or really early, depending on how you look at it. Mum and Dad are asleep at the Burrow, the other Order members in the safe house are either out, talking to Kingsley over the latest information gathered by Charlie and others like him, or sleeping. Or drinking. Or shagging. Those are the three most popular options, these days. 

So it's a bit of an unwelcome surprise to find someone in the kitchen already. Charlie doesn't want to talk. He doesn't want to smile at anyone and make nice, like Mum raised him to do, doesn’t want to see anyone or be seen by anyone and have to—have to be a decent person rather than a lump on a log like he wants to be. The girl— _woman_ , he corrects himself, when she turns around at his entering, she can't be much younger than him—is Asian and pretty and unfamiliar, which altogether means nothing, ultimately. 

She's  _there_ , which is enough to make him want to frown. He stifles it with difficulty. It isn’t her fault, that he doesn’t want to see anyone. She has a right to the kitchen, same as him. 

“‘Lo,” he grunts, eyeing the cup in her slender hands.   

“I made tea,” she says, her voice quiet and soft. “Want some?” 

He nods and she summons a mug with an elegant wave of her wand and pours him a cup of tea that smells heavenly and hands it to him. Their hands brush—hers are cold, for all that the mug she’s holding is steaming. She sits at the table, stares down at her mug, and apparently dismisses him entirely from her thoughts. 

He doesn’t mind at all, is relieved in fact, sits himself across from her and sips at his tea. It’s perfect—not too sweet, not too strong, definitely not the weak swill he’s been making do with lately. 

He sighs in appreciation and she blinks, glances his way, but doesn’t say anything. For a long while, they sit there and drink and are blessedly silent, and Charlie feels himself unwind slowly, as the heat of the tea permeates the parts of him that have gone all knotted and icy in ways that, he’s sure, are entirely metaphorical but certainly feel physical. And because he’s enjoying not thinking, he lets himself idly study the witch across from him. 

She’s quite pretty, in an undeniable but unaffected way. Round face, rosebud mouth, dark eyes, dark-lashes, and glorious hair, glossy and dark as her eyes, draped over her shoulder and escaping from its loose plait in fine strands. Her hands are pretty too, fine boned and long-fingered. But not soft—there are tiny scars over the back of one hand, visible calluses on the inside of the other palm where it lies slightly uncurled on the tabletop, on her fingers, where one might hold a quill or a broom. 

She’s a worker, this woman, whoever she is. He takes in the slight slump of her shoulders, the shadows under her eyes. She looks at him then, suddenly, her gaze piercing and riveting at once, and he doesn’t look away, lets himself be caught staring. She doesn’t look away either, studies him in return, which is only fair. He wonders what she sees, what conclusions she comes to. 

“You’re Charlie Weasley,” she says. 

He nods, not quite up to speaking just yet, and downs the last of his tea, letting it slide in a rush down his throat and spread through his chest. 

“Bill has scars, and everybody knows the twins. Penelope was dating Percy, so I saw them together quite a lot. He was always in our tower—he never seemed to want to be seen around the Gryffindors. Ron was Harry’s friend. And Ginny’s the only girl.” 

She says all this without any sort of inflection, like she’s just remarking on the weather, and where it might have come across as rude or abrupt from someone else, it just sounds…casual from her. A neutral observation.   

“I’ve no idea who you are,” Charlie replies, amused and vaguely charmed by this explanation of how she knows him through the process of elimination. 

“Cho Chang,” she says. She stands fluidly, takes his empty mug from his hands after a questioning glance and sets them both in the sink. A quick incantation later and they’ve washed and put themselves away to dry. Her wandwork is very graceful—like a dance, or like her magic is music and she's a conductor.

“Good night,” she says, and leaves just like that, with nothing more said. 

 _Huh,_  thinks Charlie, staring after her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [@deifiliaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deifiliaa/profile) made a BEAUTIFUL [ moodboard/aesthetic photoset](https://deifiliaa.tumblr.com/post/186757512022/the-house-is-quiet-its-very-lateor-really) for this fic! go shower her with love and adoration!


	2. Chapter 2

The next time Charlie meets Cho Chang is also in the kitchen, but the circumstances could not be more different. Viktor hauls him in, his magnificent jaw as set and cutting as the edge of a mountain, or something equally impressive. 

Charlie doesn't know, he's a little out of it, because there's something very wrong with his legs that's making pain claw its way up his spine and hook into his ribs like it's trying to rip them apart and get at his heart. 

He's aware enough to know they apparated to the doorstep after a meet with a potential smuggler turned out to be a trap, but then he thinks he blacked out, because he doesn't remember the ordeal of the password that would let them in, or being tested at the door by today's watcher to make sure they are who they seem to be, or even who the watcher _was_. 

When he comes to, he's in the kitchen, and then on the table, staring up at Krum's handsome mug, and then at Cho Chang's lovely face. 

He means to say something, but what falls out of his mouth is a gargled moan of pain. 

"—was it?" Cho is saying, her wand waving over him and deftly weaving a net of diagnostic spells, which he recognizes from all the times he's been in a similar position. The lines are all red, with big glowing knots like gems, which means _bad_. Pain surges through him, a spike splitting his spine and piercing his skull, and drowns out half of what Krum answers with. 

"—purple, I think something— _deterio_ , maybe?"

"Brilliant," says Cho, "Help me turn him over." 

Charlie really does black out then, and comes to with a ragged yell as fire roars under his skin, melting his bones, his muscles, _him_ —or that's what it feels like. He's dimly aware of hands on him, of a soft and steady voice chanting, but he's consumed with the burning, he's on fire, he knew he'd die like this but _where are his dragons—_

And then it vanishes, replaced by a rush of coolness like a wave overtaking him, and Charlie goes limp, panting. He opens eyes he hadn't realised he'd closed, sees Viktor frowning down at him in concern before he's suddenly and deftly turned onto his back. 

"Wiggle your toes for me," Cho says, and Charlie does, lifting his head with some effort to see his toes indeed wiggle. Wasn't he wearing boots? 

"Excellent. How do you feel?" 

"Roasted," Charlie croaks. His voice is rough as gravel—did he scream? He doesn't remember screaming. 

Cho's brow furrows, and she peers closer at the net of magic still hovering over him. "Still?" she asks, anxiety tightening her voice. "That's not right, I thought I—"

"Nnh—no," Charlie amends, as Viktor helps him upright. "No, sorry, I'm alright. No pain, no fire, just feel as though someone tried to transfigure me and stopped half way."

Cho's expression clears. "Oh good," she sighs, and her impassive mask cracks as quickly as that, revealing a woman who looks suddenly closer to Ginny's age then his, her eyes wide and her hands trembling just the slightest as she dissipates the diagnostic charms (all gold and green now, smooth but for a few tiny bumps in the lines). "I've only studied cases ike yours out of books. I thought I'd got it wrong." 

Charlie would find this alarming if he'd known that before now, only she's obviously healed him, so it's pointless to panic after the fact. "I think you did great," he tells her. "Would never have guessed you were a trainee." 

"He is very scarred," says Viktor, something like cheek in his tone. "I would take as compliment. I think he knows many healers." 

"Dragon conservationist," Charlie points out, "It's in the job description—'will become intimately familiar with healers and mediwizards and witches'." He only realizes how that sounds once the words are out of his mouth. Cho goes pink high on her cheeks, at the praise or the innuendo or both, which is startlingly endearing. 

Charlie muster up a smile for her. "Am I free to go Healer Chang?" 

Cho's blush deepens. She clears her throat, nods. "Yes, you are. You'll need to drink a bit of skelegro though—the curse was attacking your skeletal system. I've stopped it in time, but you're a bit brittle. Erm, Viktor—" 

"I have him," says Viktor, who manoeuvres Charlie off the table and shoulders him with ease. They're about the same height and have about the same mass, luckily for Charlie, whose knees feel distinctly jelly-like.

"I'll bring you the potion later, after you've slept a bit," says Cho. "Best thing for you right now is rest". 

"Yes miss," says Charlie dutifully, as he and Viktor hobble to the door. He remembers, belatedly, that he hasn't thanked her, and half twists out of Viktor's grip, clutching the doorway to stay upright.

"Thank you," he says, with as much sincerity as he can muster while feeling about as solid as a poltergeist. "I think you saved my life." 

"She did," Viktor says under his breath, but Charlie isn't listening, he's looking at Cho, who gives him a beatific smile. 

"Go to sleep before you faint," she says, "Or Viktor will have to float you to bed, and his hover charms are rough." 

"Rude," Viktor calls over his shoulder, pulling Charlie away. Cho laughs, a small thing like a bird in her mouth, but just as cheery. 

"She is very pretty, no?" Viktor asks, as soon as they're out of earshot. 

"Very," Charlie agrees amiably. 

"She is quidditch player," Viktor continues, looking sidelong at him. "I played her, one time. During triwizard. She is good." 

"Oh?" says Charlie. 

Viktor snorts. "You have face open like book. How you live in times like these, I do not know." 

Charlie shrugs, eyeing the stairs with weary trepidation. "Haven't got anything to hide right now, do I?" 

"So you like her." Viktor says, as they begin the very slow ascent to the spare bedrooms upstairs.

"'M not blind," Charlie says mildly, frowning in concentration. "She's pretty, like you said. And I like everybody." 

Which is true, but Charlie still goes to sleep that evening looking forward to Cho's visit, even if she _is_ bringing him skelegro to choke down. There's just something about her... 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild Viktor Krum appears! I've decided he's in the Order, because he was there during Bill and Fleur's wedding and I don't see him as the type to sit around while another Dark Wizard reigns. Also just because I love him, and I figure he and Charlie would bond over Quiddditch, and since they're both stationed mostly internationally, they'd have missions together.


	3. Chapter 3

The third time they meet it's Cho who finds him. 

Charlie’s on the roof, hiding from his Mum’s fussing. He can’t blame her, but it gets stifling, and with Ginny at Hogwarts and Ron on the run and the twins courting death with all their irreverent products designed to humiliate and immobilize the Death Eaters and Bill fussed over by Fleur, Charlie’s the only kid of hers available for fussing. (Percy is thought of only with a sour pang). The roof of the latest safe-house (courtesy of Augusta Longbottom) is as heavily warded as the rest of it, but allows for take-off and arrival by broom if one doesn’t mind not being able to see the building one is landing on until one’s feet touch the roof. 

Charlie likes it. There’s a garden up here—vegetables and potion-useful plants and flowers who seem to serve no purpose other than to look pretty and smell nice, and up here the sky is wide and free and everything is quiet and it could be any February day of the many February days of his life. He’s cast a cushioning charm on the ground and on a bag of mulch and is in comfortable repose when the trapdoor rises silently and a dark head emerges from the gap.

“Oh,” Cho says. Her voice is thick and watery. Charlie levers himself up on his elbows. “Sorry, didn’t know anyone was up here.”

“’S alright,” says Charlie, peering at her with rising concern, but she keeps her face ducked, out of sight. “I can go if you’d rather be alone, but don’t leave on my account.”

Cho sniffs hard, climbs up, and shuts the trapdoor behind her. Charlie wordlessly softens the ground beside him, and she settles with a murmured thanks. Neither of them say anything for a bit, the silence punctuated by Cho’s stifled, hitching breaths and the calls of birds in the distance. She keeps wiping at her face, and Charlie keeps trying not to stare, and he hasn’t said anything for too long so now it’ll only be awkward to ask her what’s wrong or offer condolences or—

“I had a patient,” says Cho, interrupting his panicked thoughts. “A little girl. She was attacked by a werewolf. More like—more like ravaged,” Cho corrects tremulously. “She was so small. Nothing we could really do, when they're that young. Her Dad was—we—" Cho breaks off, dissolving into quiet sobs, and Charlie throws caution to the wind and puts a hand against her heaving back, rubbing soothingly. 

“Sorry,” she gasps, “I’m sorry, I know I—I cry easily and—mediwitches shouldn’t be so weepy—I just—she was so _small_.”

“Hey, shhhh,” says Charlie, pulling her close. She turns into his chest, her tears quickly, warmly wetting his jumper. “Don’t apologize. Of course you’re crying. Means you’ve got a heart. Any decent person would cry about something like that.”

Cho shakes her head against his shoulder but doesn’t say anything more. She cries for a while, and Charlie holds her, stroking her back and rocking side to side a little mindlessly, the way he used to when Ron was little and had nightmares and Mum was busy with the colicky Ginny. Eventually her tears taper off and she sits up, casting about for her wand before bewitching a leaf into a handkerchief, wiping her face and blowing her nose with a honk. It’s not pretty, but Charlie feels his heart go soft anyway. 

“Sorry,” she says again, tucking stray strands of her hair behind her ears.

“Don’t,” Charlie says. “I don’t mind.”

She quirks a flat smile at him, her eyes red, the circles under them more like hollows. 

“When was the last time you slept?”

“I don’t even know what day it is,” Cho says with a hiccup of a laugh. 

“Merlin,” says Charlie, “D’you need to be anywhere right now?” 

She shakes her head.

“Well, my room’s free if you want to have a kip.” He hears himself too late, but Cho either doesn’t notice or ignores the implicit suggestion of him having offered her his bed.

“Thanks,” she says, “I just…do you mind if I stay here for a bit? It’s nice to be outside.”

“‘Course I don’t. And it is.”

He lies down and she stretches out beside him and unselfconsciously lays her head against his shoulder, her body a long line of warmth against his. They don’t talk any more, but Cho’s breath evens and deepens, and before either of them realize it she’s slipped off. Charlie turns his head, looks at her, the soft fan of her eyelashes against her cheek, her soft mouth slightly parted in sleep. She’s got a tiny, near-invisible scar high on her cheek just under her eye. His fingers twitch with the urge to touch it. Instead he bends his head to the crown of hers. Her hair smells…like hair, and the faintest whiff of shampoo of indeterminate scent. 

It’s nice. 

Charlie lets her nap for the better part of two hours, until she starts to shiver and curl into him, and then he shakes her gently awake. She makes a soft grumbling sound, nose scrunching before she peers at him.

“Hey,” he says, “My bed’s still free. Come on.”

She hums under her breath, pushes herself upright and then sort of sits there, blinking long, slow blinks. Amused and fond, Charlie tugs her to her feet and manages to help her down the trapdoor stairs without either of them breaking their necks. She leans heavily against him at the bottom, presses her face into his sternum, apparently content to sleep right then and there. Up close like this she’s tiny and Charlie isn’t very tall to begin with—but Viktor had said she'd played Seeker, and she certainly has the perfect Seeker’s build. Small and lithe. 

“Cho,” he jostles her, “Come on, it’s not far.”

She grumbles. Laughing under his breath, Charlie sizes her up, bows to temptation, and bends to put an arm behind her knees, his other arm behind her back, and _lifts_. She comes awake properly at that with a little gasp, her arms clutching at his shoulders.  

“I’ve got you,” he says, smiling into her wide eyes.

She blushes furiously, red as his hair, as he walks down the hall, nudges the door to his bedroom open with his foot, and kneels on the bed to lay her down gently. Only she doesn’t quite let go of him, and he finds himself bent over her, his face inches from hers. Her gaze flicks down to his mouth—and Charlie knows that look. He’s received his fair share of that sort of attention, and he won’t lie and say he doesn’t want it, to kiss her. He wonders if she’s awake enough and not-sad enough to kiss—it wouldn’t be right to make a move while she’s emotionally compromised...but she solves the problem for him by straining forward and brushing her mouth over his, soft as a butterfly’s wings.

He breathes out, smiles, tilts his head and deepens the kiss. Her hands slide up his shoulders to cradle his jaw close, and Charlie moves one hand from the mattress to her waist. They break apart, come together again, learning each other in tender, exploratory movements until she pulls back, mouth pinker than it was, her thumb rasping against the cut of his jaw in a way that sends a pleasant shiver down his back.

“Alright?” he asks her, sitting down beside her.

She nods, relaxes into the pillow, one of her small rough hands reaching out to catch his. “Thank you,” she says, quiet.

“For what?”

“Letting me cry. And the kiss. It was nice.”

“I’ve wanted to kiss you for a while now,” Charlie says easily. “...Who’s made you feel you have to keep apologizing for crying?”

She looks away, her mouth a moue of unhappiness. “Who hasn’t?” she mutters, and turns on her side, curling into herself and away from him.

He regards her with bows furrowed. “Well, they’re all arseholes. I don’t mind a cry; indulge in a few myself now and then. It isn’t healthy to keep things bottled up you know, Miss Healer.”

She snorts, but her shoulders relax from around her ears. 

“Cho, honestly. You ever need a cry in peace, you come and find me, alright? I mean it.”

He waits. After a long moment, she says, voice small, “Alright.”

“Alright,” he says again, somewhat stupidly, and stands. “I’ll let you go back to sleep. G’night.”

“Night,” he hears, as he closes the door.

.

.

.

Later that night, having been given another assignment, he pops into his bedroom to check on her. She’s deep in sleep, hugging his pillow to her chest like she’s not used to sleeping alone. He tells himself it's silly to be envious of a pillow and brushes her hair back from her face and out of her mouth. She turns her face into his touch in her sleep and Charlie lingers just a little bit before he tears himself away and heads out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM SOFT AND THEY'RE SOFT AND I LOVE SOFTNESS. probably only one more chapter after this! please comment and tell me your thoughts on this little exercise in rare-pair tenderness!


	4. Chapter 4

The war is over.

Charlie has lost a brother and gained more scars. His hands tremble whether he’s holding something or not, from a curse to the back that may have been a targeted attack or friendly fire, it was hard to tell in the final battle.

Final Battle. Like something out of a story Dad used to tell them, about Merlin and King Arthur and dragons, which were the only part of the story Charlie ever really cared for. 

The war is over, and Voldemort’s dead, and Harry died and came back to life—or something like that. The castle is quiet, a golden dawn peeking over the tops of the Forbidden Forest, and everyone is asleep or haunted, like him, or both. Charlie is on the quidditch pitch. What used to be the quidditch pitch. The rings were burnt down, the lawn torn by giants and werewolves and acromantulas, many of the seats smashed to nothing more than kindling, the others leaning over drunkenly, half-collapsed in on themselves. 

There aren’t any bodies though. They were all moved yesterday.

Charlie turns away from the thoughts of corpses, turns on his heels, feels his palms itch for the handle of a broom to grip, for the wind to rush through his hair and his lungs, for the earth to fall away beneath his feet.

As though summoned by his wishful thinking, he hears the quiet snap and ruffle of robes behind him, and then Cho dismounts from her broom and comes to stand beside him. 

“How’s the air?” he asks her.

“Nice,” she replies, cheeks ruddy with her flight. “Fancy a ride?” She holds the broom out to to him, and he takes it, swings a leg over, and launches into the air. 

It’s as brilliant as it always is. He jets into the sky, higher and higher until the chill has pierced right to the marrow of his bones and aches behind his eyes and all the world is a patchwork below him, like one of Mum’s quilts. He hovers there for a moment, heart pounding behind his ribs, gasping in air that’s almost too thin to breathe and then—let’s himself fall, backwards, eyes closed, the air ripping at him like so many fingers.

He can sense the ground, the pull of it, magnetic and omnipresent. Lazily, he completes the flip, toes skimming the grass, circles around Cho watching him, around the pitch, and then the castle itself, over the Great Lake, over the gates, then back, near but not too near the Forbidden Forest and Hagrid’s hut with smoke spiralling out its chimney, cruising to a stop a few feet away from Cho and dismounting. He can’t feel the tips of his fingers or his ears, but he feels lighter.

“You never went pro,” remarks Cho.

“Nah,” he says, and he could say more, about the noise and the demands and the training and the pressure, all of which he could handle, only life was about more than just a competition and what everyone wants from you, and what _he_ wanted was to be around dragons, who are simple creatures at their core, and where the only thing expected of him was to treat them right and try not to be roasted. 

But that’s a lot more talking then Charlie wants to do, and Cho won’t mind if he doesn’t elaborate, so he doesn’t. She doesn’t quite smile at him, but her eyes crinkle a little at the corners, and she leans against him, and he puts his arms around her, and it’s nice.

They’ve come together countless times over the course of the war. What started in the kitchens of one of the Order’s hiding places resolved quietly, easily, into sitting beside each other whenever they got the chance and their paths crossed. Sometimes they were quiet, like now. Sometimes they talked about their day, or their childhoods, funny stories of misadventures at Hogwarts and on dates, their favourite Quidditch games, and laughed helplessly.

Sometimes they talked about how much they hated the war, or how afraid they were, all the time, or how they were tired in a way no amount of sleep could cure. Sometimes Cho just sat and cried while he rubbed her back and supplied handkerchiefs. Sometimes she sat beside him and took his hand and held it and let him do absolutely nothing but stare into space, like she didn’t mind at all, like she didn't want more from him than he wanted to give. 

Sometimes they curled up together and kissed lazily, or learned each other's bodies in rushed, heated moments, or took their time and breathed and let themselves _have._

Charlie doesn’t know where this is going. They’ve not talked about it. Cho is finishing her apprenticeship—her exams are coming up in a couple of months, if Mungo’s has pulled itself together by then. The dragon conservatory in Romania is waiting for him, down half its staff to the war. Fred's dead and Charlie's family is in pieces, but so’s most of the British Wizarding World. 

The summer promises weeks of funerals and rebuilding and Ministry Initiatives and hearings and arrests and battles with stray Death Eaters and Snatchers and their ilk.

But the war’s over, and Charlie’s part in it all is well and bloody _done_. 

He’s fine with not knowing what lies in store for him and Cho, or for any of them in the larger scheme of things. He’s fine with just holding her, chin propped on the crown of her head, arms slung over her shoulders, her rough clever fingers threaded through his. The birds are chattering in the trees. The air is warming as the sun rises, promising a glorious day of blazing blue skies. 

It’ll take time, but he thinks, cheesy as it is, that everything will be ok, eventually.

Cho tilts her head back, glances at him with her dark doe-eyes. He doesn’t know what she’s thinking, but that’s alright. He presses a kiss to her temple as she turns and wraps her arms loosely around his waist. 

“Want a cuppa?” she asks after a bit.

“Sure,” he says. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end! thanks for coming along on this rare-pair exercise in tenderness! love y'all, pls comment your thoughts even if it's just an emoji


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